GamersGate On The Business Of Indie Games, Indie Fort And The Future

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March 19th, 2012 | By

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GamersGate

We all know that the indie gaming world is growing exponentially. I don’t need to drum that into your head yet again, lest you wish to find yourself drilling jagged perforations into your eye sockets in a fit of unbridled frustration. What some of us might forget, however, is the very thing that drives independent development to a global audience – the functional platform that we’re increasingly taking for granted.

That, children, is the role of digital distribution services, and GamersGate might just be the biggest, at least as far as the dedicated delivery of indie goodness is concerned.

I recently spoke with Gustav Nisser, GamersGate’s own business director, about the service’s stance on the independent gaming market. The response, it seems, was extremely encouraging.

[This Content is Exclusive for Insider]

This article was written by Richard Glenn for Issue 21 of The Indie Game Magazine. You can view the digital version of Issue 21 from this link.

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About the author

(1508 posts)

Valuing gameplay and innovation over everything, Chris has a keen eye for the most obscure titles unknown to man and gets a buzz from finding fantastic games that are not getting enough love. Chris Priestman, Editor-in-Chief of IGM Email: chrispriestman@indiegamemag.com Twitter: @CPriestman

  • Jonathan White

    Publishing isn’t the first step of indie success. They need exposure, Chris, and journalism sites are doing a horrible job of giving fair time to SMALL indie developers who show promise. Who’s talking about Dapper Swine? Nobody. Who’s talking about Loud-Bear? Well, they’re dead now so there would be no point, but at the time, nobody. But hey, keep on doing the same old stories about how Notch made a tweet, Tim Schaefer got a million dollars, talk about the Indie Buskers for no reason except Notch tweeted about them, X well-known successful developer who needs no exposure or help has passed gas/burped/blinked. Or write an entire spread about how said already-successful developer announced a title to a game that doesn’t exist yet, while you ignore everyone who has good work to show off and yet who has gone uncovered… just like every other “indie” “news” site does. Thought you guys in the news biz liked untapped, unexplored stories that nobody else was covering? Guess not. Sorry Chris, but your keen eye for obscurity is in need of a checkup. You’ve been practically hit across the face with obscurity and still won’t report on it. I can name a dozen developers who have good stuff to show off, but what good will it do? I think we’ve seen from past experience, none.

    I’m practically jaded now from helplessly watching games I’ve fallen in love with fail because the story doesn’t provide you with optimum ad revenue.

    Only a fool thinks that the indie scene as a whole is in good shape just because 3 people are millionaires. Do some real journalism. Dig deeper than you’re comfortable doing. Do that and you’ll have my full support.

    -Jon

  • http://www.facebook.com/priestmanc Chris Priestman

    Hey there Jon, thanks for the comment – shows you care. Let’s get a few things straight: 

    1. You’re obviously targeting only a few of the stories I have written and  entirely ignoring the rest of them…which is kind of ironic considering what you are saying.

    2. This story wasn’t actually written by me as it says at the bottom but that’s not to shift what you say away from me of course.

    3. I do not write news because Notch tweeted it – that kind of annoyed me that you said that so yes it constitutes a whole point. I actually got an email from the guys as I originally wrote in my first post about them.

    But anyway, yes I agree, there are a lot of games out there that really don’t get the exposure they deserve and the rest of the staff and I over here try and remedy that as much as possible. That’s not to say that we can possibly catch them all though, nowhere near.

    If I find an obscure game and it looks good then I will write it about it, contact the developer, speak to them and help them out as much as possible. Now, I don’t know how much of a writer you are but if you want to help us out in our cause then you are welcome to. If not then shoot me an email about a promising game I have missed and I’ll shout about it as much as my little lungs will allow.

    I can see why you’ve said what you have – it’s merely because you’ve looked at my recent post history and seen a couple of stories that I have written and made an assumption. Trust me, I love finding obscure games, struggling developers etc, and helping out, that’s my passion. 

    There’s not really anything else to say. I can only further prove to you that I do look and help out smaller indie devs with my posts from this date onwards. Keep an eye out and if you think I am doing a bad job then fair enough – I’ll be sure to improve upon that again. 

    But like I said, there’s only a few of us doing this and there are a LOT of games and developers out there and the internet is a mighty big place. We do what we can and expect the community to pick us up where we may falter, so continue doing so and we’ll make sure to keep improving :)